Everything you wanted to know about Ukrainian chess

7/14/2008 – It is one of the super-powers of chess, but somehow there have not been that many great events in Ukraine. Until very recently, that is. This year, which is just half over, has already seen the ACP World Cup, the Aerosvit tournament, the Pivdenny Bank rapid and recently the Life:) chess match in Kiev. WIM Olena Boytsun visited the event and sent us some great pictorial impressions.

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From 3rd to 7th of July, 2008 British Grandmaster Nigel Short, former World
Championship challenger, and Sergey Karyakin, who at twelve became the youngest
grandmaster in history, played a ten-game rapid chess match in Kiev (Kyiv).
The venue was the Kyiv Academic Puppet Theatre, Grushevskogo Str., 1a, Kyiv.
This is the oldest puppet theatre in Ukraine, established in 1927, and today
pays host to puppet theatres from all over the world.

Everything you wanted to know about Ukrainian chess

Impressions from Kiev by Olena Boytsun

Three weeks ago I was at a meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kyiv,
and on the table of the meeting room I spotted something that I had never seen
before. It was the full-page advertisement of a chess match, in color, in the
magazine "What's on" – a guide to what to do in the city. Can you
believe it? The whole page. The chess match. Go out to visit a chess match.

A full-page ad in "What's on" in Kiev

In July 2005 I wrote in an article
for ChessBase.com: “It sounds like it cannot be true, but here are the facts.
The first is: Ukrainian chess players are among the best chess players in the
world. The Ukrainian team holds the titles of both Olympic Champion and World
Champion. Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov is the youngest world champion in the
history of chess. Ukrainian Andrei Volokitin is the best-rated junior for a
long period of time. Ukrainian Sergey Karjakin became a grandmaster at the age
of twelve, a record that still stands and is unlikely to be broken soon. Ukrainian
Kateryna Lahno is the fresh European Women’s Champion. All of this is still
part of fact number one. The second fact is – Ukrainian chess players have to
travel abroad to play in tournaments. There are few or no interesting regular
international chess events in Ukraine”.

Two years have passed, and probably this is a good moment to review the status
and situation in Ukrainian chess life.

First of all, it is necessary to review the situation with fact number one
– Ukrainian chess players are good players. With regard to the titles and places,
everything is still mostly true – even Kateryna Lahno, what a déjà vu, is again
European Women’s Champion. The men’s team is not the current Olympic Champion,
but the women’s team is. Magnus Carlsen took the place of Andrey Volokitin,
but Vasyl Ivanchuk is the World Champion in blitz. Ukraine is definitely still
among the top chess countries.

The second fact was – there were no interesting chess events in Ukraine. There
was no international chess life, only the internal one, sometimes bright, sometimes
boring, sometimes scandalous, but still only taking place in the nation-wide
chess scene. However: today, in the current year 2008, the schedule of
chess events in Ukraine have already included:

The ACP World Cup in Odessa in January;

The Aerosvit tournament in June;

The Pivdenny Bank rapid tournament in June;

The Life:) chess match in Kiev in July.

All the events above appeared on the chess scene within the last three years,
all of them are interesting, all are international, and the organizers have
expressed their willingness to do these events annually.

Apart from current chess events Ukraine is set to stage the match Kamsky-Topalov
this autumn in Lviv. It started with shiny-eyed rumors in the newspapers, and
on June 24 2008, at a press conference in Kiev, FIDE President Kirsan Iljumzhinov
announced that it would definitely happen.

The match will be in Lviv – FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

Now even the yellow press jumped on the bandwagon, with a story entitled: “Top-level
chess match to be played in Ukraine” – right next to the big three-page article
“Five-year-old girl eats parents with salsa sauce”.

Sergey Karjakin, the number two in Ukrainian chess

It is difficult to underline who out of all Ukrainian chess players is the
national chess symbol. Vasyl Ivanchuk is the most experienced Ukrainian player,
Ruslan Ponomariov was the FIDE World Champion. Katya Lahno or Anna Ushenina
have everything required to get some more attention of the public, but lack
a general PR strategy (in other words, someone should take care of them). Only
Sergey Karjakin has a stable media image – “the youngest grandmaster in history”
is a phrase that the media adore. And Serge doesn’t just have an image. Apart from
being young, open-minded and able to smile, Sergey is the number two Ukrainian
chess player (after Ivanchuk) and number 15 in the world, with an Elo of 2727
as of July 1st 2008.

“The chess match to go out to see” that I spotted in the press was, of course,
Karjakin vs Short, organized by the Ukrainian mobile operator Life:) and taking
place from the 3rd to the 7th of July 2007.

The playing venue, the Kyiv Puppet Theatre, seems to be a very fine place to
hold such an event. The theatre is not very big, but large enough to provide
the space for chess fans who want to see the games live. There is also enough
room at the entrance and upstairs, where after every game refreshments for spectators
and participants can be served. There is a press center with Internet access.
There is a VIP room for special guests. And there is a big park around the theatre
where you can enjoy the summer weather and play outdoor games, like chess on
the big outdoor board.

The event was worth visiting and attracted the attention of the citizens of
Kyiv. At the entrance they were guided by young ladies, so there was no chance
anyone will get lost. Entrance was free.

Once the person was inside, he or she was met by young ladies again. Different
ones. They provided information for spectators and journalists, and also wrote
down the names of visitors for a raffle every evening after the games. Every
evening one visitor won a new mobile phone.

Every day a raffle: Genna Sosonko draws the name of a visitor...

... and the lucky winner gets a new cell-phone from Life:)

The room where all spectators (and the players) could drink a cup of coffee
or eat some canapé.

In between the games people often played chess outside, some very seriously...

... and some showing a lack of ultimate professionality.

The man behind the event was Bessel Kok, who is the Chairman
of the Supervisory Board of Life:), the Ukrainian mobile operator. Bessel arrived
in Kiev on the 4th of July in order to enjoy the event personally. He stayed
until the end.

Old friends: Bessel Kok and Nigel Short

Bessel Kok, Genna Sosonko, Sureyya Civil (the General Director of Turkcell,
the largest mobile operator in Turkey), and Tansu Yegen, the General Director
of Life :)

Genna Sosonko and Vladimir Tukmakov were the official commentators of the match.
They did it so well that I just hope that there was a recording of their discussions.
The commentaries were funny, but still rich in content, instructive, smart and
entertaining. I followed the whole conversations on the forth game, which was
won by Nigel Short.

Marat, the man with the endless supply of T-shirts

The two grandmasters provided commentaries in the hall next to the playing
venue. There were chairs for the spectators there, and a very lively public.
You could see two young boys, three grandparents (male and two females), an
amateur who was more interested in talking to the young girl next to him (but
the young girl more interested in meeting Nigel Short). In the commentary hall
you could also spot, for example, Marat, who works for an IT-company and wore
different chess T-shirts every day.

The bearer of the prizes: Alexander Karjakin, the proud father of Sergey
(left)

Through Alexander Karjakin I had an opportunity to meet Tanya Kostjuk, a Ukrainian
chess player who now works in Kyiv and whom I hadn’t seen for ages – actually
since we were children and played in youth championships.

An old school friend, Tanya Kostjuk (right), was "forced" to come
to the event by her colleagues

The people at work mostly forced me to come here, Tanya says. They said that
I was a chess player that is why my place now was at the chess match and not
at work.

The people from Tanya’s company got to know about the event through billboards
and other channels of advertisement. The management of Life :) also used internal
resources for the communication with the audience: all subscribers (about nine
million people) got an SMS inviting them to the match.

Genna Sosonko and Leonid Bodankin, the Honorary Vice-President of the Ukrainian
Chess Federation

During the commentary the audience sometimes laughed at the exchanges between
Genna and Vladimir. Oleg Tovchiga, the main arbiter in the playing hall had
to warn people about keeping silent. There were no mobile phone rings during
the entire event, probably due to a genuine feeling of responsibility on the
part of the spectators, but more likely because the soft-spoken guard at the
entrance was very convincing in his instructions that you had to turn off your
mobile phone, or else.

A very interesting personality around the chess match was Vitaliy Zablotsky,
who is not only a university professor and active public figure in Ukraine,
but also a keen chess player and an expert in chess history.

Vitaliy Zablotsky chatting with Bessel Kok

Stunning: one of the chess dancers at the closing ceremony

Irina Dovgopola is a young lady from the organizers’ side
and responsible for all the details of the match. Irina is a real professional,
and although she had never a deal with chess events, the match was beautifully
executed. Irina told me that the organization team had gone to Sofia and Prague
this spring in order to see live chess events, and that they had to learn everything
from scratch.

Sergey being grilled by Olena Boytsun, the author of this article (haircut
by Aldo Coppola, necklace by Mexican folk artisans, blouse by Effiecy, handbag
by Prada, recorder by Olympus)

The previous tournament in which Sergey Karjakin played was Foros, and of course
who could resist asking him The Question. As an old friend of the Karjakin family
I didn’t risk a lot.

Me: Sergey, I have a question that all the world would like to ask
you.

Sergey (laughing): About him? Again?

Me: Yes, What are you going to do about Magnus Carlsen? Smash him with
a tennis racket?

Sergey: Some people say he is unbeatable, but I think it is really possible
to win against him, at the chess board, and not just physically.

Me: But still, what if is not possible at the chess board?

Sergey: I am used to winning at the board.

Me: What about chessboxing?

Serges: Ahhh, that could be veeery interesting!

Sergey also said he had prepared well for the event and that he was really
happy to win the match against a player of the caliber of Nigel Short.

In my opinion the Life :) match was a great success, both for the company and
for the chess world. In a couple of weeks the Ukrainian chess community will
return to normal life and to living in expectation of another match, a really
big one, to come to Ukraine this autumn.

Photos by Nikolai Gavljuk
and Olena Boytsun

About the author

After working on her PhD in International Economics at the Russian
and Eurasian Studies Center, St. Antony's College, Oxford University,
Olena Boytsun has returned to Ukraine and is currently
working in Kiev as Communication and PR Director for a Ukrainian holding.
She also acts as independent PR-consultant with major specialisation
on personal PR-programms and Internet projects.

Olena has played chess since her childhood. Her current title is Woman
International Master. She is a regular contributor to the ChessBase
news page.

In September 2008 Olena will establish a new chess TV-Program on the
Ukrainian and international market.

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